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Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by DanBC on Monday December 31, 2018 @12:11PM (#18795520)
>Why should something be banned because someone somewhere might be offended or their "brain might break"

Certain activities are banned in sports. People playing American football wear helmets; you can't stamp on your opponent's head during wrestling; you can't do high tackles in rugby.

And certain activities are banned in speech, even in the US. In this case credible threats of violence were made and the University (wrongly) said that they couldn't block those because of 1st ammendment.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by jeffdavis on Monday December 31, 2018 @08:15PM (#18798266)
Why do you say "wrongly"? It's one thing to punish bad speech; it's quite another to block furture speech which may be good or bad. Generally the first amendment requires punishing speech after the fact outside of some narrow circumstances.

It's not clear to me how the university would block only threats in the future without restraining potentially legitimate speech.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by DanBC on Tuesday January 01, 2019 @05:03AM (#18799607)
They claimed they were forbidden from blocking the wbesite because 1st ammendment. The court told them that was wrong, and that 1st ammendment didn't prevent them from blocking the website.

They have other reasons for not wanting to block websites, and they should have used those.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by porpoisely on Monday December 31, 2018 @12:37PM (#18795709)
Sure. But those rules are enforced within the sport, not television networks. Just because tyson bit holyfield's ear doesn't mean the network got banned. Even more, just because there is a possibility that someone might bite someone's ear doesn't mean that entire networks have to be banned.

If there is a credible threat, that's a matter for the police, not the university. If instead of a website, someone mailed the threats, should the university ban the mailman, the postal system and all mail?

Also, when it comes to something as important as free speech and open access, I'd rather err on the side of more free speech rather than less.

One thing that is interesting is how so many foreigners are so supportive of limiting speech in the US. Can I ask why you are so heavily invested in supporting censorship in the US, especially since you aren't american?

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by DanBC on Monday December 31, 2018 @12:43PM (#18795754)
Credible threats of violence were made. Complaints about those were made to the univeristy who did nothing at all to investigate the threats. The university claimed they couldn't do anything because 1st ammendment. That argument was rebutted - one thing the university could have done was to block yikyak. No-one was asking for that to happen, no-one suggested it should happen, but it was one option available to the university.

> One thing that is interesting is how so many foreigners are so supportive of limiting speech in the US. Can I ask why you are so heavily invested in supporting censorship in the US, especially since you aren't american?

A more interesting thing is how few Americans bother to read the original court documents to understand what's really going on and who then leap to yelling CENSORSHIP even if that isn't what's happening.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by porpoisely on Monday December 31, 2018 @01:06PM (#18795910)
If there were credible threats, can you show me the arrest records? If credible threats are made, what does blocking the websites do? Is it better to ignore those threats rather than address them? Credible threats are a criminal matter after all. And I did read the article. Didn't find any credible threats that were listed.

And we care because we are americans and we don't like censorship and we don't want to live in an oppressive and censored environment. I was just curious as to why you care as a foreigner. I wasn't trying to offend you. Just curious.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by mcguire on Monday December 31, 2018 @06:40PM (#18797829)
"Is it better to ignore those threats rather than address them?"

You'd have to ask UMW.

Re:Court rules universities may have duty to block websites ... by anigbrowl on Monday December 31, 2018 @04:47PM (#18797245)
You're moving the goalposts, which is not forbidden but is causing you to get downvoted as people discount your sincerity.